One Last Chance

The Longest Day

The Ausome headquarters sat tucked inside a refurbished industrial building in the heart of the city, it was modern, minimalist, with wide windows that bathed the open-concept office in clean natural light. While it wasn't the biggest or tallest building in the city, it was one that Charlotte personally chose and refurbished when she finally had the capital to purchase a lot.

In the meeting room, she sat at the head of the table as she listened to the latest product review. Her CFO, Wan sat on her left and her product manager sat on her right. She also had a small team consisting of the head of R&D, Quality Assurance, Finance and Marketing Lead.

“Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining. Let’s dive in, P’Somchai, how are we looking at the formulation for the new hydrating moisturizer?” Charlotte asked seriously.

“Good morning, P’Char. We’ve finalized the third round of samples. Version 3B has better absorption and a lighter texture. We swapped out the shea butter for jojoba oil—it made a noticeable difference during our internal tests.” Somchai, her R&D lead, spoke clearly.

Charlotte looked through the progress report, everything seemed to be smooth in production. They should be able to launch a new line near her birthday or even earlier. She casually asked, “What are the feedbacks from the testers?”

Peach, her marketing lead, replied with certainty, “It’s been excellent, most of them preferred the newer one.”

The CEO nodded in satisfaction before she suddenly looked up at Peach, “Sorry, please remind me once more, who are included in our group of testers?”

The other woman looked startled for a second before replying, “We have a range of young adults to middle age, P’Char.”

“Does that include pregnant women?” Charlotte asked seriously.

“Oh, um, not this round.” Peach said hesitantly.

“Why not?”

“Firstly, pregnant women are not our focus audience and not many are willing to risk their pregnancy by using tester’s products.” Peach answered tentatively. 

Charlotte frowned as she scrolled down on her ipad to look at the ingredients, she asked Somchai, “P’Somchai, I need you to carefully look through every ingredient and tell me if anything is deemed unsafe for pregnant women.”

“Kap.” Somchai nodded, “There is an ingredient called willow bark extract, it is not considered safe for use during pregnancy due to its natural salicylate content-”

“Why is it in our formula?” Charlotte snapped.

Everyone looked at each other in surprise, it was very rare to see Charlotte lose her temper at her employees.

“P’Char, please wait for me to complete my explanation.” Somchai gave her a helpless smile, “We use willow bark extract but in a very low concentration of below 2%. Generally, it is considered safe to be used topically. As Nong Peach says, our target audience had always been young adults, that was why it was not in our consideration to remove such common components like Salicylic Acid.”

Charlotte tapped her fingers and softened her accusatory tone, “What are the alternatives?”

“Niacinamide is proven to be safe for pregnancy.” He replied.

“That is true, my cousin used niacinamide throughout her pregnancy. My niece was born without complications.” Emily, her marketing lead piped up to reduce the tension in the air.

“Alright, replace it immediately.” Charlotte ordered decisively. “Whether our target audience are young adults or middle age, anyone has the possibility of being pregnant while using our product. We must be more inclusive in our product.”